Comments by BarryPearlman (Top 9 by date)

Eugen -

The line of code marked "very important" solved the problem of displaying text in Pane 3; I believe that I understand the concept.

I did run into a couple of problems however. The first concerns the code paragraphs:

// free strings before freeing array of elements
for (int i = 0; i < m_nCount; i++)
{
VERIFY(SetPaneText(i, NULL, FALSE));
SetPaneIcon(i, NULL, FALSE);
}

// first allocate array for panes and copy initial data
if (!AllocElements(nCount, sizeof(CMFCStatusBarPaneInfo)))
return FALSE;

When the status bar is first created, there are no strings to cancel and the solution bombs out when it hits the "VERIFY" macro; it is looking to free a string that hasn't been created yet. Reversing the two blocks of code solves that problem.

The second problem concerns:

virtual CWnd* GetMessageBar() { return NULL; } // no tracing of menu/toolbar commands in the first pane

It appears that when you mark the application for context sensitive help, it automatically wants to display AFX_IDS_IDLEMESSAGE (supplied in string table) when the application enters the idle loop.

I let the wizard allow context sensitive help; I wish I had known then and I would have not done it. I need to find out how I can undo that.

Thanks for all of your help,

Barry

As usual, scope requirements have changed in the more elaborate direction; I do plan on using your revision and I will try to write it up and submit it to Code Project.

As an aside, I can't find a reference to _GetPanePtr(nIdx) and it appears that m_nCount is a member of something, but what is the something? Is it the number of physical panes?

Thanks,

Barry

Sorry, but it still doesn't work Eugen, and debugging shows that the text is placed in the pane information structure in the case of pane 0 and the last pane, Pane 2.

I am wondering if Microsoft decided that the last pane (right) is not intended for text, but rather would be used exclusively for the date and/or keyboard key status information and hence the internal pane coding will not support text. It is above my pay grade to be able to look at the source code and confirm or deny this.

I have tried both suggestions, but with negative results. I do have a few ideas which are unconventional, and will take some time to code and debug. If I am successfull, I will try to write it up and submit it as a seperate article.

Any other ideas are welcome, and thanks to those that have submitted input so far.

Done